Somebody tell Kenny Chesney to fire up the hot dog cooker

Somebody's gonna have a lot of free time on his hands.

The NFL has suspended Saints Coach Sean Payton for a full year following an investigation into a bounty program the league said the Saints employed from 2009 to 2011, according to internet reports.

New Orleans general manager Mickey Loomis was also hit with an 8-game suspension, according to reports, and former defensive coordiantor Gregg Williams, now with the Rams, has been suspended indefinitely.

The punishments come against a backdrop of looming litigation. A growing number of players have filed lawsuits against the NFL and various equipment makers, alleging the parties were insufficiently diligent in making player safety a priority. Goodell has made it clear he wants player safety to be a hallmark of his time as commissioner, pushing for rules changes that protect players on the field and levying heavy fines against players for hits ruled too savage.

Pretty severe, right? You'd think he was doing something really horrible like commenting on NOLA.com or something.

Update: Actually maybe bitter anonymous comments on NOLA.com is exactly how Payton could end up spending 2012.

Jay Glazer said on NFL Network that he interviewed Payton immediately after the news came down, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s punishment is far more severe than Payton was expecting.

“I did talk to him and he’s stunned to say the least,” Glazer said. “I think the entire team thought maybe there’d be a four-game suspension, but not a year. I said, ‘Are you OK?’ And he said, ‘No, I’m not OK.’ He is stunned. He’s going to lose about $8 million. He is beside himself here.”

Upperdate: Of course this could all just be primary season posturing. Once he becomes the GOP nominee, we might be able to get Goodell to "Etch-A-Sketch" this stuff away.

Uppestdate: More later but suffice to say Jeff Duncan is wrong to defend Goodell's hypocrisy here just because Payton is kind of an asshole. We understand that the Payton-Loomis regime has been condescending and dickish toward the local press and we have said as much in the past. But just because the people being punished are dicks doesn't mean any actual justice is being done.

Meanwhile, Jabari Greer says "We are Devo!" or something.

Uppesterdate: Getting it exactly right, on the other hand, is Drew Magary.

Roger Goodell suspended Saints head coach Sean Payton for the entire 2012 season today. Of course he did. After all, what better way to get sportswriter after sportswriter to bow down in AWE of your far-reaching authority than to hand down a wildly severe punishment to someone who dares defy the commissioner's office?

Read on.